To help school administrators, an introduction and 12 chapters analyze employee morale and motivation and provide both experts' and practitioners' suggestions on how to improve them. The information was gathered from a national questionnaire survey of over 300 educational leaders, school visits, telephone interviews, correspondence, and a literature search. The introduction summarizes the information; notes the importance of shared governance, inservice education, and evaluation for teacher morale; and discusses management theory, administrator responsibility for morale, and merit pay. Chapters 1-3 give administrators', teachers', and researchers' views, respectively, on actions that raise or lower morale. Chapter 4 enumerates four business mistakes for education to avoid and explains Japanese quality circles. Six case studies of district morale building are recounted in chapter 5, while chapter 6 profiles 12 districts where morale was rated excellent. Chapter 7 offers a 12-item instrument for determining a district's organizational health. In chapter 8 an educational researcher advocates the "win-win" approach to conflict management. Chapter 9 presents characteristics and case studies of effective inservice teacher education. Chapters 10 and 11 suggest ways to improve administrator-teacher communication and teacher evaluation plans. The final chapter offers a sampling of 19 superintendents' observations on morale. (RW)

Publications, American Association of School Administrators, 1801 North Moore Street, Arlington, VA 22209 ($11.95; quantity discounts; orders of $15.00 or less must be prepaid and accompanied by $1.50 postage).

Publication Type: Guides - Non-Classroom; Reports - Descriptive

Education Level: N/A

Audience: N/A

Language: English

Sponsor: American Association of School Administrators, Arlington, VA.

Authoring Institution: Education News Service, Sacramento, CA.

Identifiers: N/A

Note: Number 12 in the AASA Critical Issues Series. Section and subtitles in red ink may reproduce poorly.